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The head of the Frederick County Public Schools is contesting a county commissioner's statements that some employee salaries at FCPS show a lack of fiscal restraint at the school system. Late Friday afternoon, Superintendent Linda Burgee sent a letter to the county commissioners calling pay disparities between county and FCPS accountants an "unmerited example of Board of Education irresponsibility and lack of accountability to taxpayers." Thursday morning, Commissioner Charles Jenkins said the school system's attempts to fill two accounting positions at salaries more than $20,000 higher than those of comparable county employees show fiscal irresponsibility on the part of FCPS. In her letter, Burgee wrote the school system's finance office has only nine accountants and finance managers, with a total payroll and benefits cost of $1.2 million, compared with the county finance office's 14 accounting and finance staff, costing $1.5 million. She also noted that FCPS' finance department oversees a larger budget than the county's, the school system oversees all of its roughly $500 million budget, while about half the county's budget goes to the school system. The dispute comes as both entities are working on their fiscal 2010 budgets. Wednesday, the school board proposed a $505.8 million budget for fiscal 2010, $13.2 million more than its current fiscal year budget, while the county is projecting a $27 million to $30 million deficit in its fiscal 2010 budget. In the current fiscal year, $231 million of the county's $476.9 million budget went to FCPS.
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